Four IChemE Global Award nominations for Enterprise and Sustainability

The Department of Chemical Engineering has been recognised with nominations at the prestigious 2025 IChemE Global Awards.

Driving Decarbonisation from the Lab Up

The Department’s Sustainability Committee, established in 2022, co-led by Professor Omar Matar and Dr Salvador Acha, has been shortlisted in the Sustainability category for its pioneering bottom-up approach to reducing carbon emissions.  
 
By developing the first department-level carbon accounting framework at Imperial, the committee has revealed hidden drivers of impact – particularly lab procurement and international travel – and implemented practical initiatives such as energy monitoring in labs, sustainable lab certifications, low-carbon travel campaigns, and sustainability training for staff and students.  
 
Their work has already influenced Imperial’s wider Zero Pollution and Sustainable Imperial strategies and offers a replicable blueprint for other academic departments worldwide.

ChemEng Enterprise 

The Department’s ChemEng Enterprise initiative, led by Professor Sandro Macchietto, has been named a finalist in the Business Start-up category.  

Since its launch, ChemEng Enterprise has transformed the Department’s entrepreneurial culture, supporting the creation of several spinouts – including DyeRecycle, Quaisr, RemePhy, Orthogonal Peptides and SOLVE Chemistry – with a strong pipeline of further ventures.  
 
Among these are Brilliant Dyes, which has itself been shortlisted at the IChemE Global Awards for its pioneering work on “Decarbonising Fashion and Food Industries with Sustainable Natural Dyes”, and Bioataraxis, shortlisted for “Ecosaf, a new biorefinery approach to produce biobased surfactant from biomass residue”.  

With a dedicated pre-seed fund, mentoring network, and annual showcase events, ChemEng Enterprise has delivered spinouts addressing global sustainability, health and digitalisation challenges. The programme now accounts for around 13% of Imperial’s IP-based spinouts, despite representing just 3% of academic staff. 

To be recognised in both sustainability and enterprise underlines the breadth of excellence in our Department – from decarbonising research operations to launching spinouts that tackle global challenges. Omar Matar Head of Department of Chemical Engineering

Professor Omar Matar, Head of Department, said: 
“To be recognised in both sustainability and enterprise underlines the breadth of excellence in our Department – from decarbonising research operations to launching spinouts that tackle global challenges. These nominations are a testament to the hard work and creativity of our staff, students and collaborators.” 

The winners of the IChemE Global Awards 2025 will be announced on 20 November 2025 in Manchester, UK.